


Ports of Call

by spacehopper



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-24 20:42:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12020619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacehopper/pseuds/spacehopper
Summary: If Billie Lurk can't run, she'll just stop being Billie Lurk.





	Ports of Call

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumi/gifts).



If Billie had said she didn’t know why she’d come to Karnaca, she’d have called herself a damn liar and been done with it.

Karnaca wasn’t the first port she’d visited. Far from it. She’d first made her way to Potterstead, and found the ale more charming than the locals. Then she’d gone to Caulkenny, but hadn’t stayed long. She wasn’t welcome there, and she knew it from the second the harbormaster had given her the stink-eye and asked her what her business was. He might not know Billie Lurk, but he knew her type. Mercenary, his eyes had said, as he’d scrawled the fake name she’d given in the log. Assassin, she’d heard him whisper later, as she watched from the shadows of the pub near the docks. Better not to court trouble, she’d thought. Not now, not here. She left the next day and hadn’t looked back.

In Yaro, the reception had been as chilly as the weather. They hadn’t suspected her like in Caulkenny, but she didn’t belong there all the same. Tyvia had its rules and its undercurrents, strange and foreign and impossible to navigate for someone like her. She thought, perhaps, she might’ve found a place, had she stayed. Tyvia had a place for everyone. But as she’d looked over the ice, her back to the ocean, she thought that place wasn’t likely one she’d want, even if it was what she deserved.

So finally she’d set out for Serkonos, stopping first in Cullero, then making her way over land to Karnaca. The warm breezes, bright sunlight, and the sharp smell of spices she didn’t know the names of were as foreign as Yaro had been. But as she’d walked to streets, she’d felt more at home than she had since she’d left Dunwall.

She watched a woman in a tattered red jacket scold her muddy and sullen daughter. She thought of her own mother. She thought of Daud.

She turned away from the city and back towards the sea.

*

But Billie had come here for a reason. A dumb, crazy reason, sure, but dumb and crazy had never stopped her before. She stood on the dock and assessed the ship before her. She didn’t know a damn thing about ships, but even she could tell this one was worse than most. Rust on the metal, rot in the wood, and it creaked like the floorboards in the Flooded District, one wrong step away from breaking. And to top it all off, there’d been a fire in the boiler room a month ago, the final straw to take it out of commission entirely and land it at the docks, waiting to be scrapped. Or for some sucker to buy it. Billie always had a touch for these things, though. She ran a hand along the railing, feeling the wood under her fingers. It might be beaten, might even be broken. But that’d never stopped her before.

“You going to buy it?” The woman selling the ship spoke with the air of someone who hated what she did, but hated the idea of leaving it more. Billie had never understood people like that.

“I’ll take it,” she said.

She strode off into Karnaca without a backwards glance. Supplies. For a voyage, and for repairs. She remembered the books she’d read, when Deirdre had taught her. The ports they’d planned to go to. Billie for captain, Deirdre for everything else. Deirdre for everything.

“Get a move on!” A man said, bony arm jamming into her side.

She acted on instinct, twisting around to grab the man’s neck and slam him against the wall. A ratty little man, despite his bravado, smaller than her and twitching. She saw the terror in his eyes and smiled.

“You sure you want to do this?” she said. “Because I could use a good fight, but I don’t think you’d be one.”

The man swallowed. The sun beat down on them, and even shadowed as they were, she saw a line of sweat making a faint trail through the fine dust that covered his face. He licked his lips, and looked at a point behind Billie. She snorted. Oldest trick in the book, that. She tightened her grip, not quite sure what she was doing, but she never was anymore. Then she felt a chill down her spine, the kind of chill Deirdre had said meant someone just walked over your grave. As if compelled by some Void damned power, she found her head turning, so see what had drawn the man’s attention.

She saw a red jacket, worn leather, and short dark hair above it, graying slightly. Involuntarily her grip slackened, and the sun seemed to fade from view. She’d been sweating before, dressed too warm for Karnaca. But now she was cold, and the alley seemed unnaturally dark, twilight replacing the midday sun.

Then the man slammed into her in his haste to escape, knocking her onto the dirty cobblestone, and she lost that scrap of red.

“He’s gone, Billie,” she said, getting slowly to her feet. “They’re all gone.”

Ghosts. Fucking ghosts. She’d never escape them, would she. Billie had always been good at fighting, but never at running away.

But damned if she wasn’t going to try.

*

She’d only gone to the palace once, staring up at it as it loomed over the city, old and proud and slightly shabby, just like the Duke himself. Instinctively, she scanned the building, the wrought iron balconies and trellised walls, the window open on the third floor. Without Daud, she could no longer transverse the space to the window, but Daud had never been one to rely on his powers. The Overseers were a danger, he’d said, and it was a damn fool who only had one tool at their disposal. He’d made sure they could climb without the magic of the Void, could hide in the shadows, find the hand grips and hidey holes any assassin needed.

And the Grand Palace was no Dunwall Tower. The Duke was beloved, and was not afraid. All it’d take was waiting until night, climbing the walls, going through the window, and she could ask him if he’d known the kind of man his son was, the kind of man his son had been. She’d ask him if he knew about Deirdre, if he’d heard her sing prettier than a nightingale, eyes lit by the moon. And when he didn’t know her from a rat in the street, didn’t give a damn, she’d press her blade to his throat, and maybe then she’d rest peacefully, not haunted by the past.

But if there was one thing Billie learned over the years, it was that it was never that simple. There was always another man, another Duke, another girl bleeding out in the street. And they never gave a damn.

*

She’d been in Karnaca longer than she’d liked. Longer than she’d planned. But the ship had been a disaster, and she’d run out of money. She’d gotten odd jobs, here and there. Protecting the mining caravans, mostly, hauling the silver to be refined. They didn’t know her here, but best to lay low regardless. And she’d made some good contacts, men and women who had cause to need a ship, and someone who’d keep her mouth shut about what she was hauling.

In a tavern near the dock, she waited for one such man. Some higher up, the woman who’d given her the tip said. Looking for someone subtler, newer, but trustworthy. She’d vouched for Billie, and the smile Billie had given her had been genuine, as had the kiss. She thought of it now, sipping at the dregs of her wine, some cast-off of the better stuff from Cullero. Yes, the men and women here had been good to her. She was almost sad to leave.

The door opened. For a moment, her heart stopped at the sight of red jacket. But it wasn’t leather, and was far finer make. Not the jacket of someone who’d seen much combat. But not so fine the man didn’t know real work. He scanned the room, eyes finally coming to rest on her. He immediately headed in her direction, taking the seat across from her.

“I hear you’re a new captain,” he said, holding out his hand. Billie took it, and as she’d thought, it was calloused, likely from the mines. He may be wealthy now, but he’d earned it. “My name is Aramis Stilton.”

“I’ve got a ship,” she said. “Where do you want to go?”

“Not me,” he said. “Cargo. To Caulkenny.”

“Yeah,” Billie said. “I can do that.” When he didn’t continue, she realized he was waiting for something. Her name.

“Meagan,” she said. My mother’s name, Deirdre had said, a fondness Billie didn’t understand in her eyes. “Meagan Foster.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a familiar red jacket in the crowd.

“And what’s the name of the ship?” he asked.

Her hand clenched around the table, finger nails digging into the leather of her gloves. The air shivered around her, and she couldn’t help but look, try to find—

She reached into her coat pocket, clutching at the talisman there. She knew you couldn’t run from ghosts.

But Meagan Foster didn’t have anything to run from.

“The Dreadful Wale.”


End file.
